How Toowoomba's generosity helped a mother see her son for the first time

For the first few years of her son’s life, Lien never saw his face. She is one of millions of people around the world who are impacted by preventative blindness. Here’s how the Toowoomba community has helped others like Lien.

Lien, 38, from Oudomxay, Laos went blind while pregnant with her son. This year her sight was restored with the help of The Fred Hollows Foundation.

For the first three years of her son’s life, Lien didn’t know what he looked like.

Lien lost her vision while pregnant with her son, because of cataracts. Last year the 38-year-old saw his face for the very first time after her sight was restored through eye surgery.

Living in Laos, Lien’s story of preventative blindness may seem distant from the Darling Downs, but without the generous donations from this region, people like Lien may never have got the medical support they needed.

In 2025 Toowoomba was the fifth most giving region in Queensland to The Fred Hollows Foundation, an organisation supporting people impacted by preventative blindness.

38 year old Lien from Oudomxay, Laos seeing her three year old son for the first time after losing her sight from cataracts. Her surgery was supported by The Fred Hollows Foundation.

Fred Hollows director of communications Alison Hill said it was amazing to see the support from the region.

“It’s really incredible that people choose to give to people and support people that they’ll never meet,” she said.

“To see the joy on someone’s face when they’ve been blind for 10 years and they get their sight restored and the patch comes off, they are like different people and to know that you can be a part of that joy is incredible.

“When we tell them, the people having these surgeries, that someone in Australia has helped pay for that surgery, they are so overwhelmed and grateful because they just can’t comprehend why people would want to do that.”

In the past year more than 970 people from Toowoomba donated to the organisation raising a total of $380,000.

38 year old Lien from Oudomxay, Laos went blind from cataracts while pregnant with her son. This year her sight was restored with the help of The Fred Hollows Foundation.

Fred Hollows Foundation has restored sight to more than three million people in 25 different countries globally.

According to their data nine out of 10 people who are visually impaired don’t have to be.

Ms Hill said the leading cause of preventative vision loss is cataracts, a condition most people will deal with as they age.

While cataract surgery is relatively simple and accessible to most Australians, Ms Hill said communities in low-income countries don’t have the same access.

“People in Australia will understand the difficulty and what it’s like not to be able to see well and so that’s why I think they support the foundation so well,” she said.

Ms Hill said vision loss has a major impact on people’s lives, and for someone like Lien she had to rely on her 14-year-old daughter to help care for her brother and earn money for the family.

“Parents would imagine the joy when you have a baby of being able to see them and watch them grow up and she’d never had that chance,” she said.

“Not only does it make an enormous difference to Lien’s life but it makes an enormous difference to the entire family’s lives.

“A relatively simple treatment just has an enormous flow-on effect.”

Ms Hill said with Christmas around the corner, making a donation in someone else’s name

“It’s a great way of being able to both give the gift of sight, but also make someone else feel good that that gift has been made in their name,” she said.

“It’s a nice opportunity at this time of year if you’re thinking of what to get the person who has everything.”